


No Matter Where I Go (I’m Always Gonna Want You Back)

by bitchgar (Werebr0kenppl)



Category: The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Angst, Brief mention of fake ah and fake pine, Fake Chop, Flashbacks, Itssa sad, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 02:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14728604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werebr0kenppl/pseuds/bitchgar
Summary: Aleks bites the dust while on a heist and James isn’t handling it well.The only time he is is when he’s looking back on happy memories with Aleks.





	No Matter Where I Go (I’m Always Gonna Want You Back)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Howdy Hey!!
> 
> So this was inspired by a video put together by @ragecutie on tumblr and it was started two months ago. But then Hannah and a few others on tumblr came up with a theme weekso I decided to finish this for that! (Though I’m kinda cheating, cause this works for day one AND two so this is what I’m posting for both!! Lol)
> 
> Flashbacks are in italics. 
> 
> Title taken from the song Want You Back by Five Seconds of Summer!!!

No matter how many times people tell him not to blame himself for what happened, James still did.

The only time James was even the slightest bit happy was when he was looking back on the good times.

* * *

 

_He’s back in Colorado, with their old crew. It’s the night before the heist where everything goes to shit and makes the big split happen. Everyone should be at their homes, resting; except for James. He couldn’t sleep so he drove himself back to the office, and is sat in the recreation room playing Battleblocks._

_He doesn’t expect anyone else to come round until later in the morning, so it scares the shit out of him when the overhead lights come on. On instinct, he drops the controller to his lap and grabs his pistol from where it was resting on the couch next to him, aims it at the door._

_“_ Jesus Christ _, don’t shoot, it’s just me,” a familiar voice says, and when James eyes adjust to the sudden brightness, he realizes it’s only Aleks._

_“Fuck, dude, sorry. You scared me, is all,” James replies as he lowers his weapon. “What are you even doing here anyways?”_

_Still standing by the door Aleks raises an eyebrow before speaking. “I could be asking you the same thing. Why are you here, alone in the dark, playing fuckin’ battleblocks, at 1 in the morning?”_

_That makes James let out a chuckle. “Couldn’t sleep,” is what he says._

Didn’t wanna be alone _, is what he doesn’t say._

_It must translate to Aleks anyways, because he says, “Me neither,” and is grabbing another controller and sitting on the couch next to him._

_They don’t talk about their situation, or the way they both feel impending doom over the coming day. They just play their way through the coop of battleblocks, until the early hours of the morning. Neither noticed, but they slowly inched themselves closer to the center of the couch until their thighs and shoulders were barely touching, but neither one of them is bothered enough to move away._

_They must fall asleep like that at some point, cause the next thing both of them knows is Jordan coming in after sunrise to get ready for the heist._

* * *

 

James can’t even sleep a full night anymore, he’s always woken up, sweating and crying, over the same recurring nightmare. It’s like they’re back on the heist, and no matter what James does differently to save Aleks he still always ends up dead on the street. The part that makes him wake is when the others in the crew turn hostile and blame him for Aleks death, spewing hurtful words as they kick him from the crew he started, sometimes even physically kicking him.

It’s those moments, after the dream but before full consciousness sets in that hurt the most, though. He expects to look over and see colorful arms, so vibrant against his white sheets, supporting a familiar head of blonde hair. Waits for him to sit up and wrap James in an embrace, whispering in his ear to get his breathing back to normal and the tears to stop. But when reality hits him, when he fully comes too and sees how empty the other side of his bed is, it makes him cry even harder; full-on sobs, gasping for breath.

So yeah, James doesn’t sleep much besides cat naps on the couch in Brett’s office.

* * *

_It’s Aleks birthday, and even though James didn’t wanna go out, he relented after being practically begged to come out by the man of the hour. In the end he’s glad he went out, seeing how happy Aleks was surrounded by friends, made him happy as well._

_It’s as they’re outside the bar, waiting for the Uber they called to come take them home since they all drank a little too much to drive, that James does it. He usually doesn’t do the whole PDA thing, and doesn’t do selfies very often, let alone selfie with another person. But Aleks is affectionate when drunk, and he’s hanging off of James, red in the face from the drinks or the chilly night air or something else-James doesn’t know-and he opens the front facing camera. The series of pictures he takes end up being his favorite ever; as they go on aleks gets closer and closer to James, their cheeks squished together by the last one._

_James makes the last one his phone background for 2 months._

* * *

 

He likes to think that he’s good at pretending everything is fine, for the sake of the crew. He doesn’t see how badly he’s failing at this, until it falls apart in the worst way.

He’s perched on the roof of a building, a hotel or a office space he’s not sure, watching through the sniper as joe and Brett make a fake deal. He’s supposed to wait until the target steps out to make the deal with the other two, and then pull the trigger. Before that happens though, he jerks in shock so that the gun is no longer aimed where it should, and fires a bullet into a civilian on the sidewalk, the man dead before he even hit the cement. The resulting chaos makes their target flee, his backup firing at Brett and joe, and Brett is swearing up a storm over the comms, yelling for Anna to start the van and everyone to get to it _now_.

James breaks his gun down, and gets himself to his escape vehicle, and heads towards the warehouse. When he arrives he sees two things. One, Anna with the help of Asher, are working on patching up Joe, who seems to have gotten a minor gunshot in the escape. The second thing is Brett, seething in rage and headed straight for him.

“What. The. Absolute. _Fuck_ , James?” Is what he says when he reaches where James has been stood since arriving.

It’s in that moment, as he’s stuttering to explain himself, that James realizes how not okay he is. “I just…” He can’t bring himself to make eye contact with Brett, preferring to stare at the floor as he continues in a whisper. “I _swear_ I saw and heard Aleks on the roof next to me. That’s why I freaked and shot the rando instead of our guy.”

Brett is quiet for a moment before letting out a big sigh. “I thought you said you were dealing with this. And now Joe got hurt and some random dudes life just ended today, because you’re falling apart, even though you tell me you’re fine. You’re obviously not, and I’m not gonna let anybody else on the team get hurt because of that.”

It’s then James looks up. “What the fuck Brett, you can’t kick me out of a crew that I created!”

“I’m not kicking you out,” Brett quotes back to him, his voice raising a bit with each word. “What I _mean_ is that you should take a break. Get away from here for a while, hell, go see a therapist for fucks sake.”

Brett’s words must shock James a bit, because now he’s just staring at him with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Before he can school his face back to normal and think of a reply, Brett is putting a hand on James arm and speaking again.

“Look, I know you’re still hurting over Aleks, we all are. But you’re not dealing with it in a healthy way, and that’s affecting the rest of us. I only said what I said because I care, about you and everyone else, and I don’t wanna lose anyone else.” As he’s speaking, James notices Brett’s eyes are selling up with tears, none of them accepting to fall but still lingering, and Brett clears his throat before finishing his speech. “So please, take a break. Get better. Well still be here and when you come back we’ll go on even bigger heists, maybe even commission Dollface to do a graffiti mural in memory of our former resident pyromaniac.”

James sniffles, pulls Brett into a hug, burying his face in the crook of Brett’s neck, and says, “yes, yeah, I’ll-ill do that.”

* * *

_They look like fucking idiots._

_When they first got to Lost Santos, Aleks had had this brilliant idea; what’s worse is he got James and Trevor to join in on it._

_“_ Let’s dye our hair blonde _!” He had said. “It’ll be_ fun _, you know they say blondes have more fun!”_

_James got off easy; by the time they finished Aleks and Trevor, there was only enough bleach left to do one single streak in James’ hair. Poor Trevor though, they ended up not leaving the bleach in for long enough so his came out looking more coppery brown than blonde. And aleks’ was the worst of all, his coming out practically orange._

_Trevor just gets his cut really short, but aleks gets his professionally bleached and dyed again, and he actually pulls it off well._

_James especially loves it when his tan hands are carded in almost-platinum-white strands, or the sharp contrast between Aleks’ pale hair and his dark, black sheets._

* * *

He never comes back to rejoin the crew. Mostly because there wasn’t a _crew_ to rejoin  

After Brett told him to take a break, he went back to his hometown, stayed with his mom for a long while, even went to a few therapist appointments. He didn’t make it a recurring thing, he didn’t think that was helping much, but went more than just the one time he originally planned because his mom thought it was for the best. Even with that not helping, just being around and talking to his mom had significantly helped.

He ended up staying with her for almost 6 months, and when he realized that he decided he wanted to go somewhere else for a while. He ended up spending 4 months just traveling from city to city, seeing things he’d never gotten to, before ending up in Maine. He stayed there another 6 months, and returned to Los Santos a little over a year and a half since he left.

While he was gone the first few months, he contacted a few people from the crew, asking them how they were, if they missed him. But over time he stopped, feeling like it wasn’t his place to be asking anymore. He did message Geoff every now and then, just to be sure they were all okay without wanting to ask them himself.

It’s mostly just a yes, followed by a brief synopsis of whatever they were doing at the time. Over time, the answers get shorter and shorter, until Geoff stops answering at all. It makes James mind go two ways; one, they all died so he should too. And two, they’re not together anymore.

It ends up being the second scenario. After losing Aleks and subsequently James, everyone else started dropping like flies. Joe, after seeing the worst side of people for years, wanted to go work with animals; Anna wanted to live to see her first niece be born, and Asher went with her; Trevor had saved up enough money from heisting to go back to school; Jakob just… disappeared, one day he was at the warehouse the next he wasn’t. So that left Brett, but his focus had shifted a bit. Rather than robbing from the city, he was getting paid to protect it. Putting the fear of God into corrupt cops and politicians, using brute force to make shit get done around the city, taking out scum of the earth.

James found all this out when he met up with Brett for lunch after he returns to Los Santos. Before they get up, Brett slides an envelope with two checks across the table to James. He explains it’s his share of the profits from selling the van and the warehouse.

James takes that money, buys out the building of a former tattoo shop, sandwiched between a florist and a coffee shop.

* * *

 

_They never really were good at putting into words what it was between them. It was always a will-they-won’t-they back before the split, neither willing to give in and admit that they liked the other. But for whatever reason, that changed after they relocated to Los Santos. Then they accidentally hooked up, and then kept doing it, but never talking about it._

_Then James had been unfortunate enough to be taken by a weaker crew of punks-who didn’t stand a chance against the rest of James’ crew-and when he returned, Aleks was acting completely different. He became much more clingy, and started being more like a boyfriend than just a friend-with-benefits. Not that James was complaining, just amused that it took him being kidnapped to make it kick in in Aleks’ brain,_ idiot _._

_Things continued in much a similar fashion, Aleks continuing to be clingy and starting shit at work, being the best fuck of James life. They still didn’t talk much about feelings, but after Aleks goes home for Christmas one year, that changes for the better._

_Theyre lying in bed, post-orgasm, James on his back almost asleep with Aleks laying half on his chest, tracing what James thinks to be flowers into the bare skin of his shoulder. He taps James twice on the cheek to make sure he’s listening before speaking._

_”So over Christmas, my mom and I were talking...” He trails off, and James sighs and opens his eyes fully, looking at Aleks to implore him to keep going._

_”She uh, she kinda made me realize that life is really fuckin short, especially in our line of work. And that even though it sucks, and makes you vulnerable, that talking about your feelings once in a while is a good thing. So here I am, trying to do that,” he lets out a small laugh before continuing. “James... I love you. I just wanted to say it before a day comes that I can’t.”_

_James is smiling at him, so big and dumb, and instead of speaking right away his hands go to blonde hair and pushes their lips together. After a few seconds of deep, intimate kissing, James is breaking away with a laugh before speaking._

_”You big dummy, I love you too,” James says and they’re back to kissing and laughing._

* * *

 

Looking back now, it seems almost comical, Aleks saying how he wanted to say it before he was too late. 

He’s still thankful that their friends from Fake Pine had some connections to the cops, and were able to strike a deal to get Aleks’ remains so they could properly bury him.

Nobody stops him but before they do, James takes the ring off his finger and pockets it. It isn’t until after he returns to Los Santos from his year and a half break, he gets it cleaned, and gets a chain to put it on.

He always wears it, tucked inside his shirt and resting right by his heart, where the memory of Aleks will live until it’s his time to go and they can meet again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> To see the video/ read up on what this theme week is, find me on tumblr @pyro-aleks!


End file.
